Continental Airlines Sewage Flight, Eyewitness Account

Passengers on Continental Airlines flight 1970 from Amsterdarm to New Jersey on Thursday, June 14 were forced to sit next to sewage that seeped down the aisles for hours, according to King 5:

“To be blatantly honest, I was more nervous than I had ever been on a flight,” said [passenger] Collin Brock. “I’ve never felt so offended in all my life. I felt like i had been physically abused and neglected. I was forced to sit next to human excrement for seven hours,” said Brock.

Here’s what happened: Mid-way through the flight, the toilets stopped working. The flight made an unscheduled stop in Shannon, Ireland to fix the problem…but the problem wasn’t fixed. Shortly after take-off a sewage geyser started, and this time Continental didn’t turn back.

Dana (who was in first class, away from the poo geyeser) from Metroblogging NYC writes:

Shortly thereafter they announced that one of the two working toilets is now completely broken, that we will all–all 250 of us–need to share the one toilet in first class and that it is not quite fully functional. We are literally told not to through any paper down and to only go “#1″ if we can help it.

So here we are on an 8 hour transatlantic flight with one semi-functional bathroom and they start serving food and drink. I had two bloody mary’s hoping that the sodium levels would make me retain water. My boyfriend and I both refrained from eating or drinking much of anything–a real bummer when you paid for first class and all that good food and alcohol that comes with it. Everyone on the flight was told to “limit their consumption” and to “control what comes out on the other end”

Gross! According to Dana’s post, the sewage was bad but the customer service wasn’t much better. (No information, a random overnight stay in Ireland, letting people sit around in a terminal for no reason for hours before telling them their flight had been canceled, etc.)

In the end, Continental has offered passengers a $500 voucher. Would you take it? Is that enough? Could someone pay you $500 to take a poo flight?—MEGHANN MARCO

Comments

Edit Your Comment

Yeah, admittedly I’d accept $500 to take a poo flight. I’d just find some way of keeping my feet off the floor (maybe I can bring a phone book for that?) and sleep the entire way. Back in the 1990s I flew trans-Atlantic on a C-5 Galaxy with one severely broken toilet, and we managed fine.

Is $500 enough? Depends – if you paid $1000+ for a first class seat, then no, that’s not enough, I’d expect $500 PLUS the amount extra I paid for first class refunded.

If I was in coach, and $500 covers the cost of the flight, then sure, I got a free flight (albeit a poo-filled one), and I’ll gladly fly Continental again. I’ve said this before in another post, but I have been using Continental almost exclusively since ’95 or so, and I’ve never run into any problems, except weather related events (rain in Houston or snow in Denver/NY).

Drinking alcohol on a long flight is foolish. On the other hand, it surely dehydrates you — in this instance not a bad idea at all.
But I would take flying seated alongside a stream of urine and the occasional turd to flying alongside a crying toddler.

Where’s the mandatory Snakes on a Plane joke? C’mon people, it’s been 17 posts already and nobody’s said “I have enough of this motherfucking shit on this motherfucking plane!” or something to that point. I’m very disappointed.

I’m sure the cabin crew did the best they could in a bad situation. The blame seems to lie with the maintenance crew, and whomever cleared that particular plane to fly. Then perhaps with the pilots for not declaring an emergency and grounding the flight (I’m assuming they have that power?)

And I don’t think $500 was enough compensation. I think Continental will learn that they needed to go above and beyond and get out ahead of the media backlash.

@wobudong: Isn’t sitting next to an excrement geyser and sitting next to a miserable screaming child the exact same thing??

I’m just kidding, both situations would be awful for all parties involved. I don’t think $500 cuts it. Aside from being just gross – this is definitely a health hazard. This was Continental, you said? It’s going on my avoid list. Along with dozens of other companies.

@Bay State Darren: My apologies. I have been anointed as one of the bearers of the Snakes on a Plane line. I hope my belated line reading will be to your satisfaction: I’m tired of this motherfucking dookie water on this motherfucking plane!!!

Wow, so it appears any expensive form of travel has a high chance of sewage spilling. NASA is probably the most expensive (If someone can beat it, surprise me), so let’s see some floating crap in space!

Airplanes should be like trains (in movies, at least) for situations like this: passengers can pull a rope and the damn thing just stops wherever it happens to be. These passengers could have done that and gotten off to catch the next plane instead of this disgusting one. There, problem solved.

I know, I know, I know, poop is a horrible thing. It’s not like the sewage flows out of the toilet and this happens all the time, and I think they’re over reacting a bit. That being said, Continental should just comp the flight. And to the lady who drank Bloody Marys hoping the salt would back her up…someone should probably tell her that alcohol is a diuretic.

The aircraft in question has 8 lavs normally in use and I would question the airline even flying with only one or two operating. If the non working lavs were not placarded as required they may have been in violation of the MMEL for the 767. Need more info on this one.

My Name happens to be Collin Brock and I am the very person from that flight. I realize that some people may find my words neglected and physically abused as extreme. I would like to offer this explanation: There was not a single rep to be found from continental aiding in the entire process of this crazy flight. When we were bussed to a place to stay in Ireland, only for some of us to arrive and find out the inn was full and we needed to be bussed a different place where was Continental? They should have had at least one rep organizing the passengers and keeping them informed as to what the problem was and what course of action was being taken. Yes I felt there was a certain amount of neglect. Many people spent hours in Shannon, Ireland waiting for the bags, which never came. It was well into the night before they got anywhere to rest. Not that much rest was had by anyone, we had to be back at the airport in the early morning.

In reference to being abused. Intentionally, knowingly exposing people to hazardous material, (human waste which has the potential to carry any number of diseases) in my opinion, is an abuse against anybody and everybody’s rights, let alone of a paying customer.

I would like to make it clear to the person who said they would take the shitty flight for $500 that we were awarded vouchers. $500 does not cover the cost of the flight from Amsterdam to Newark. We in fact paid to sit in a cesspool. Also the vouchers are only good for use with Continental. It costs $100 or more, depending on your final destination, to book with them rather than, for example, travelocity.com or orbitz.com. And I don’t know how often some of you bloggers fly but fyi here are business class prices from Newark to Amsterdam several months in advance, quoted from the Continental website: “Nonstop from
$4,260.00, With Stops from $3,838.00, Lowest Refundable from, $5,734.00 First/BusinessFirst Cabin from $4,260.00

Wow, that’s disgusting. Not to mention a blatant health hazard. If excrement is floating about the cabin, and the air is constantly being recycled, there’s a good chance that someone is going to get sick.

Whoever “fixed” that plane and then cleared the flight should be immediately fired. The passengers should have their full fare refunded. End of story.

Agreed. Basic spelling errors like this, and the use of words like “poo” (what are we, like 3 years old now?) is why I refused to vote for consumerist to get on Google news. I still can’t believe they made it! When this place stops acting like a teenager’s blog, then it might be considered a news source.

Re the original subject – having been to Shannon Ireland, I’d take sitting on a stinky plane any day.

I wonder how long “shortly after takeoff” is in this situation, in regards to when this “geyser” started. And let’s all just calm down a bit and realize that while there was sewage “leaking” down the aisle, I wouldn’t go so far as to classify it as a “geyser”.

And unfortunately, this is a lose-lose situation. Turn around, and you face the wrath of the people who would’ve been willing to deal with it and are now pissed that they’re facing yet another delay. Push forward and you have a plane full of people “forced to sit next to human excrement”.

I just thought of something…the cabin’s saturated in shit and the crew says, “Tough shit [ha ha ha, funny pun.] Yer stuck with it for seven hours.” (Incidently, I’m guessing the cockpit was sealed enough as to prevent the pilot etc. from having to giva a damn personally.] What if it was a terrorist threat? Surely post 9/11, we’ve contigency for such a situation, especially after failed shoe-bomber Richard Reid tried to blow up a plane over the mid-Atlantic. If there is such a response plan for emergency landing, couldn’t they have done that? If there isn’t, why not?

No, $500 wouldn’t do it. I’m not the squeamish type either. But… that’s just fucking nasty. I think those people deserve, at the very least, the entire cost of their flights refunded (and I’m willing to bet that many of them were worth more than $500 – 1st class, business travelers who bought their tix last minute, etc.) I’d say, a $500 voucher PLUS refunding the ticket, whatever the cost of the individual ticket was. Maybe a nice gift certificate for a restaurant, too, since these folks couldn’t comfortably eat on the long flight lest they need to use the toilet – not to mention eating next to a river of shit.

I don’t think I’m the first one to complain, and honestly so long as due compensation was given, I’d put up with the shit stream flowing down the aisle. Problem is, $500 is not my idea of due compensation. I think they should comp the ticket and give another free ticket/voucher up to $500. That’s more than fair, and I’d actually willinginly place myself on the flight for that compensation. They probably aren’t even covering half the cost of the most expensive ticket with the $500, so that’s really unacceptible.

I would have thrown a fit. I’ve been on a transatlantic flight before and they’re not too much fun even when conditions are optimal.

Hour one, I probably would have been okay. Hour two, a bit miffed. Hour three, pissed. By the end of the flight, I would have been livid. Maybe it’s my mother’s fault, but I would have absolutely demanded to be compensated for the flight in addition to the $500 voucher – if not more. Double my frequent flier miles or whatever.

The fact that the flight crew actually TOLD people to limit their intake of food and drink and to “only go #1 if you can” ON A TRANSATLANTIC FLIGHT should clearly demonstrate that there’s a TREMENDOUS problem.

Sorry about the all caps, but they’re necessary to convey how incredulous I am that any decent airline would allow this to happen.

Are there really people who can hold their poo that long? When I gotta go, I gotta go. I can maybe hold out an hour, in an emergency, but not eight hours. So no, not even with a free flight + $500 would I willingly fly on Poo Airlines.

@Peeved Guy: He comes across as even more dramatic when watching the video clip that quote was taken from. Lucky for him, the othervisuals of the shit-stained carpets and phonecam pictures of the flight attendants wearing makeshift hazmat getups were included to show how nasty it was.

@TinaT: In the interest of sharing way too much information, on a recent round-trip of 13+ hours each way I managed to hold off numbah two until I was off the plane. I’m still not sure from where that particular talent was summoned.

Man, I can always count on the Consumerist posters to make me laugh my arse off, at least once per day…

Yeah, I took a flight on Spirit from Detroit to New York La Guardia that took 4.5 hours of airtime – we spent most of that time circling Manhattan in turbulence. Spirit, no frills airline that it is, no longer provides barf bags, so all you could were people yacking all over the seats and in the aisle. After all that fun, we had to divert to Atlantic City to refuel and have a cleaning crew clean up as much barf as they could. The flight crew were prohibited from giving out water under threat of being fired if they did. Never, ever again will I fly Spirit. Some of these airlines truly deserve to go bankrupt…